More women in computer science studies
The percentage of female students studying computer science is below - and in some institutions, well below - 20 per cent. Several studies have attempted to identify the reasons for this lack of interest and it emerges that a significant factor dissuading bright female high school students from embarking on a career in computer science is their perception of computers as something for “nerds” and game players. To quote Dijkstra, however, “Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes.”
Available data and social analyses demonstrate that women are attracted to creative and socially useful disciplines, a fact which already explains their study choices in other scientific fields, such as medicine, environmental engineering, or physics.
We believe that an effort to communicate the creative side of computer science to girls in high schools could improve our ability to attract scientifically talented female students. To this end, we proposed NERD?, a program to increase the number of female students in Computer Science faculties. NERD? is the acronym for the Italian phrase “Non E’ Roba per Donne?”, which translates as “Not women’s stuff?”. The main objectives of the program are to disprove the stereotype that computer science is for “nerds” and demonstrate the highly creative nature of the discipline, thus stimulating students’ interest in pursuing their studies in it.
The first edition of the project was held at the Department of Computer Science in Roma Sapienza in 2012, funded by the Google RISE initiative (https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/google-rise-awards-are-open-inspire/). A joint venture with IBM started in 2013 and later the Computer Science Departments at Milano-Bicocca, Bari and other univeristies in Italy joined the initiative. Due to the joint, passionate work of the cooperating teams, the scope and impact of the initiative (in terms of project objectives, number of involved schools and students, and covered geographical areas) has considerably grown over time.
The project in its current setting provides orientation seminars, coding workshops, team
projects and, for the best submitted projects, additional activities such as fab-lab,
a mini-immersion in the world of research and a more advanced programming course
at IBM .
Media coverage: http://www.ow6.rassegnestampa.it/Ibm/PDF/2016/2016-11-02/2016110234518723.pdf